It's Hard to Love the Dead
by ElisAttack
Summary: Where Ichigo learns that losing his power did not hurt as much as losing those his power protected. IchigoxRukiaxRenji
1. Coming Home

Ichigo awoke with a start, his hand grasping the air desperately, only to feel nothing. The dream had been so vivid. But then again they all were. Dreams of fighting and purifying hollows.

He dreamt he was holding his sword, a familiar weight in his hand. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to wake up and find his hand empty.

Ichigo stared at his bare hand, the moonlight creating deep shadows and ridges. Flexing his fingers, he gazed at the calluses his body developed when his soul sparred. At least those aspects of old man Zangetsu remained, he missed the bastard.

He sighed, pushing off the sheets, he got out of bed. He might as well, he wasn't going to get any more sleep after a dream like that.

Time for human anatomy. As a pre-med major he was loaded with an unending supply of things needing studying and memorizing. Something he was eternally grateful for, it took his mind off the other aspects of his dreams.

The beautiful aspects.

Ichigo furiously shut out the images. He was straying into dangerous territory, he couldn't afford to even think about them. The lithe and strong figures fighting beside him, holding him up, making him strong.

A drop of water landed on his anatomy text. "Shit!" Ichigo scrambled for tissues before the text damaged, but more and more water splashed. He cradled his head in his hands, as the tears ran unhindered down his arms. He forgone wiping them away in an effort to avoid awaking Ishida, in the next room, with his sobs.

Ichigo shoved his sword-callused fingers into his mouth, muffling any sound, and only when his eyes ran dry did he remove them.

* * *

He awoke in the morning to the smell of burning jalapenos.

Fuck. Choking on his own fingers wasn't enough, Ishida heard him last night.

He moved his head from the desk, peeling off the paper stuck to his face, and rubbing the gunk from his eyes.

He chanced a glance into the mirror opposite his desk, only to see the photocopied diagram of a spleen imprinted onto his cheek. He got up and wobbled to the bathroom.

One head-clearing shower later, he sat at the breakfast table while Ishida shoveled spicy scrambled eggs onto his plate. Ishida dumped some eggs onto his own plate then took the pan to the sink.

"How'd you sleep, Ichigo?" He questioned as he poured cold water into the hot pan.

"As you're aware. Like shit." Ichigo mumbled as he shoved food down his throat. He loved Ishida's spicy eggs, they almost beat Yuzu's breakfast miso. Almost. And they served their purpose to make him feel better. "But I'll deal with it, like always."

Ishida grunted, turning off the tap. "What are you doing today? It's Saturday."

Ichigo shrugged, "I was hoping to get some studying done, the molecular bio paper's due two weeks."

"Alright." Ishida leaned again the counter, staring intently at him.

He could feel the Idiot's eyes digging into his forehead.

"What?" He growled, meeting his gaze. "Come sit down and eat your eggs before you accidently give me an aneurysm."

Ishida ran a hand through his hair. "Listen Ichigo, midterms will be over in a few weeks, and I'm heading back to Karakura. You should come too, it'll be good for you to see your family."

Ichigo put his fork down. He was thinking of visiting home again. Bunkyō was making him stir crazy, and Todai University even more. And as much as he didn't like to admit it he really missed Western Tokyo. It would be good to see some familiar sites and people.

He scowled, he hated when the Quincy was right. "Fine."

Ishida scoffed, "Well don't let your enthusiasm hit you on the way out."

* * *

_Karakura hasn't changed a bit, _Ichigo thought as he stepped off of the train. _Even the ads decorating the station are the same, and it's been 2 years since I last visited. _

"Ichigo, c'mon, hurry up." Ichida called out to him.

"Well maybe if _someone_ didn't make me carry all of the luggage, by myself, I would be faster." He yelled.

Ishida waited for him, his hand on his waist, "Look at you, you need the exercise." He pointed to his stomach, "You're getting flabby."

"Fuck you."

"Oh my, do you kiss your sisters with that mouth?"

He didn't know when Ishida became this sarcastic, but it was a development he would have liked to have avoided.

"Ichigo!" He looked up to see Yuzu waving at him from further down the platform.

He smiled and wobbled all the way over.

She launched herself at him, grabbing him around the waist, and squeezing the breath out of him. _Maybe Ishida's right, I am getting flabby._

"Hey Yuzu," He reached down and ruffled her hair, "How's it going?"

She buried her head in his chest, and he could just feel the moisture soaking though his white t-shirt. "I missed you so much!" He felt her shoulders shake. "Why haven't you come home to visit?"

He scratched his head, nervously, "Well, you know pre-med's hard, I hardly have anytime to breath as it is."

Yuzu let go of him, staring up at him with big tears in her eyes.

_Oh geez._

"C'mon Yuzu, don't make me get all teary," He sighed, and noticed that two people were missing from the scene. "Hey, where's Karin and Dad?"

Yuzu wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, "Dad's at a medical convention in Osaka, and Karin, she..." She smiled apologetically.

_Well, she has the right to be pissed._

"It's fine." He smiled. "Hey, how about you and I see Ishida-san to a taxi, then we can walk back home."

Yuzu frowned, crossing her arms. "Sheesh, you guys have been roommates for two years, I really don't see why you call him by his last name."

He shrugged. "Old habits die hard."

* * *

When Karin saw him walk through the door, she promptly got up from her spot on the couch, and wandered out of the living room.

_Well, fuck, I'm going to have to fix that._

"Don't worry about it Ichi, talk to her, she'll come around." Yuzu said, reaching up, and patting him comfortingly.

He left his shoes and bags in the foyer, and walked after his disgruntled little sister, through the clinic doors.

"Karin?" He called out, she didn't answer. He wandered through the hall, until he saw a light shining under the door to his Dad's office. "Karin?" He pushed open the door, and was immediately assaulted by a cacophony of office supplies. "Shit! Fuck!" He dodged a stapler, but a pack of post it notes hit him square on the forehead.

_Guess she's feeling a tad more than disgruntled._

"Fuck you Ichigo!" Karin growled. She picked up a discord of pens and started lobbing them at his head. He just barely dodged them all.

"You're mopey for your last year in high school, then you take off for university, and don't even come to visit." She pointed an accusing finger at him. "You made Yuzu cry, you fucker! And now you expect to come back, and pretend everything's all hunky dory? Well it bloody well isn't."

She narrowed her eyes. "I know this isn't only about losing your shinigami powers, you got over that a long time ago."

"Karin..."

"Don't you start with your excuses. If you don't talk to us, you'll lose your family for good."

"Karin, it's nothing like that, I've just been busy with school work." The excuse sounded weak to even his own ears.

Her eyes were filled with a deep sadness, before they hardened, "Fuck off, Ichigo." She spat.

* * *

Ichigo had to escape the house, between Yuzu's pretense happiness, and Karin blatantly ignoring him at dinner, he couldn't stay there a second longer.

He meandered over to Chad's apartment. He'd only seen his best friend once in two years, when Chad came to visit him in Bunkyō for a week in the summer.

It had been fun, but awkward, punctuated by the fact that Ichigo knew when both Chad and Ishida disappeared for hours on end, they could only be fighting hollows. Thus the awkward when Ishida tried to make excuses for where they were.

_Oh this..., this..., this is nothing, just a broken arm. Fell down the stairs, and Sado-san just fell right on top of me. He's big..._

_Why I'm wearing my quincy uniform? Well, there was this costume parade. Yeah, a midnight parade, my outfit looked wonderful in the moonlight._

_There was a Menos Grande._

Well at least Chad didn't make excuses.

He knocked on his door. It opened to reveal the man in question cradling a convenience store bentō box, with a parrot sitting on his shoulder.

"Ichigo." _Chad, monotonous as ever._

"Hey. What's with the parrot?"

"Oh sorry, right, introductions." He gestured to the bird, "Ichigo this is Suki," He gestured to Ichigo, "Suki this is Ichigo."

"Awwk! Carrot top!" She squawked.

Chad looked as scandalized as he could without changing his expression, "Suki, be polite."

"Uh..., are you sure you don't have another soul-in-a-bird there..." Ichigo questioned suspiciously.

Chad stared at him for a minute with his deep eyes.

"Chad?" His friend seemed out of it, but then again, he always was.

"Yes Ichigo, I'm sure." Chad turned sideways in the doorway and showed him in. "I have an extra bentō, if you should want it."

"Nah, I already ate," He patted his belly. "Yuzu made karashi mentaiko, my favourite."

Chad gazed at his face, his eyes moving slowly down to look at his stomach. Ichigo folded his hands in front of it. _Sheesh, even Chad thinks I'm getting fat. _"Okay, I hope you enjoyed it." He said without a trace of sarcasm. "I'm marathoning Carnivore Kingdom, if you should like to join me."

Ichigo grinned. "Yeah I think I will."

"Okay, let me first go tuck Suki in." Chad let the room with the apparently sleepy parrot on his shoulder.

Turns out that the main character of Chad's favourite tv show, looked exactly like Kon. Who knew he was a _stuffed_ action figure?

After they finished watching the first season, Ichigo began the doze off. Cartoons just weren't his thing. "Chad, I'm going to go," He got up from the floor, and stretched. "I'll see you around."

"Ichigo, wait." Chad went back into his room, and fetched a flyer, handing it to Ichigo. "Here, my band's playing in the shopping district in a few days, you should come by and listen.

He smiled. "Thanks, I will." Ichigo looked down at the flyer only to see familiar bunnies hopping around playing a variety of rock instruments. He stared at the horrible art, a familiar throbbing resonating in his throat.

"Rukia made it for me, before the Winter War." Chad explained. "I thought it was cute, so I made it our poster."

Ichigo just nodded, fisting the flyer in his hand, as he turned and made his way to the door.

"Ichigo?"

He swallowed, his throat bobbing "Yeah?"

"I know you miss her and I'm sorry, but you need to move on for the sake of your friends and family." He paused. "But mostly for your own sake."

He closed his eyes, nodded again, and left the apartment.

As far as Chad knew Rukia was the whole problem, he couldn't even imagine that she was only half.

* * *

The first time Ichigo was kissed by a man was a revelation.

They were in his room in Karakura. He was studying for a lit test, while Renji stretched out on his bed, thumbing through one of the ridiculously girly manga Rukia loved.

Ichigo glanced at Renji, who was the epitome of absorbed, studying the manga religiously. Ichigo sighed, "You're going to become as crazy as her if you keep reading that shit."

Renji looked up at him, over the cover of a two characters in a tight embrace. "It's really interesting, Ichigo, times have truly changed." He flipped a page, exclaiming in awe, "So many things are different."

A few minutes later Renji sighed, got up, and announced that he should be getting back to work. "I can't come to the world of the living just to see your pretty mug."

Ichigo grunted, turning away from him back to his textbook. Suddenly he felt a hand grab his task chair, spinning it around. "Hey! What the h..." His train trailed off as he found Renji staring intently at him.

Renji bent down, his hands resting on the arms of the chair, casting a huge shadow on him, as he inched even closer. Ichigo swallowed heavily, his throat bobbing.

Renji slowly raised a hand, trailing it along his arm, leaving shivers in its wake, as he made its way to his head. He gently ran a hand through his soft orange hair, his fingers slightly tickling his scalp.

His brown eyes were dark and hooded, and Ichigo couldn't look away. He was just so damn close.

Suddenly Renji's hand firmly clamped down on the back of his neck as he swooped in, pressing his mouth confidently against Ichigo's. He was startled, his eyes flew wide open, and his body jolted. He was confused and unresponsive until Renji licked his lip, and his body jolted in a different way. His mouth opened and he soon found himself relaxing into the kiss.

He was about to reach for Renji's hip, but the man pulled away. Leaving Ichigo's hand dangling midair.

Ichigo gasped, blushing furiously and retracting his arm. "What was that?!"

Renji shrugged nonchalantly. He strode over to the bed, picked up the manga and pointed to a panel, showing two men kissing passionately.

Ichigo frowned, "So you found it imperative to practice on me."

Renji scratched his forehead. "Nah, wanted to do that for quite some time, just didn't know if it was socially acceptable now, or not."

"Socially acc-" He broke off, "Wait. You wanted to do this for some time?"

Renji had the courtesy to look sheepish.

Ichigo just stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

He sighed, "Rukia and I were talking-"

"Rukia!?" Ichigo interrupted, his voice shrill. "What does she have to do with this?!"

Renji raised a brow, "She asked me to find out if these sorts of relationships were alright in your world, you know, since Soul Society's a bit strict."

He was almost afraid to ask. "What sort of relationships?"

Renji shrugged, "You know polygamy, two guys going at it, that sort of stuff."

He gaped. "Rukia asked you to kiss me?!"

Renji frowned, "Well, I may have asked her..." He waved his hands, "Anyway, that's not important."

"Like hell it isn't!" Ichigo exclaimed, his voice rising a few octaves.

Renji scowled, reached out and grabbed Ichigo by the shoulder. "Will you shut the fuck up and let me speak, Strawberry!? Is that too much to ask?"

Ichigo quickly rose from his chair, pushing the other man's arm away from him. "I don't even know what in fucking hell is going on!" He jabbed Renji hard in the chest, "Are you playing a joke on me? Is this how you and Rukia get off? Teasing the poor human boy?" He questioned desperately.

Renji's eyes softened, his hand reached out, cupping his face, "God no, Ichigo, we're your _friends, _we care about you."

"I'm guessing this isn't the royal we?" Ichigo asked, deflating.

Renji guffaws. "Rukia and I," His thumb began stroking his face and all of a sudden Ichigo couldn't _breathe_. He sighed, explaining their situation, "We began this thing," He gestured wildly, but Ichigo understood, they were _together_. Suddenly Ichigo wondered how he managed to miss that revelation. "But something just wasn't right." Renji continued, grinning brightly at him. "You were missing."

Ichigo's breath caught in his throat.

"You should talk to her, she's always had a way with words," He rolled his eyes, "It's her Kuchki upbringing." He laughed, his hand dropping from Ichigo's face "Got to go, I'll talk to you later."

Renji jumped onto the bed and climbed out the window. Leaving the substitute shinigami all alone to ponder what transpired.

It wasn't a surprise that Ichigo failed the lit test.


	2. Learning to Understand

**Don't own Bleach.**

**Let's just pretend the Fullbring arc never happened, and Bleach ended with the fall of Aizen.**

Lying in his old bed in Karakura, staring up at the ceiling, Ichigo was trying to fall back to sleep. After a very vivid dream of Renji propositioning him for the first time, it made him want to cry, and laugh. He was such an inexperienced teenager back then.

His eyes kept wandering back to the band flyer with Rukia's drawings, taped to his wall.

_I wonder how she's doing, if she's become any stronger. I always knew she had it in her, even if she didn't believe it. She was always the toughest one out of us three, cool as a cucumber. My Rukia. Our Rukia._

_But still a shitty artist._

Ichigo stared at one of the rabbits in the audience with a shocking head of red, next to one with orange spikes.

_Thank goodness she never brought her rabbit kink to bed, Renji might have gone along with it. Yikes._

Staring at the poster slightly helped with his feelings about their whole situation. Some days he could barely think about them without feeling torrentially sad. But now he had other thoughts.

He was actually considering going to see Chad's band. For all his time in Bunkyō he hardly left the house, except for classes, to go to the library, and eat out if Ichida was feeling too torrential to cook. He hadn't gone to a club since Rukia and Renji dragged him to a gay bar, underage and unawares.

He laughed at that memory. They were all unawares until Ichigo noticed that there were more men than women. Alot more.

For the first time in a long time, Ichigo fell asleep with a smile on his face and a laugh on the tip of his tongue.

* * *

Ichigo figured, after the sordid affair that was breakfast in the Kurosaki household, that it would be nice to go say hello to Inoue since he hadn't seen her since graduation.

He heard some things about how she was doing from Ichida, but Ichigo barely listened, and after a while Ichida stopped mentioning their previous life in Karakura.

Now Ichigo had it in mind to make up for the way he acted by inviting her to see Chad's band. And maybe scarf down some of her food as a form of self-repentance, considering how often she offered to shove weird food down his throat in high school, he surmised she would be pleased by the request.

When he knocked on the Inoue household door, it was opened by a woman he didn't recognize. She had the same hair and eye colour as the Inoue he remembered, but she seemed to have aged ten years. Her hair was cropped close to her chin in a pageboy that just screamed sophistication, she stood taller than before wearing a simply printed sleeping yukata, but the familiar twinkle in her eyes was completely gone. Ichigo was faced with a woman totally different from the girl he once knew.

She looked him over. "Ichigo, you've gotten corpulent." Her mouth twitched.

He patted his stomach, scowling, "Funny, that's what everyone says."

She guffawed, "Come in, come in." She led him into a room totally different from before, the only thing remaining from their highschool years was the altar devoted to her brother's memory. Everything else was completely westernized.

She led him to a breakfast table covered in a laptop and stacks of papers and books.

"Don't mind the mess, I've been finishing up a manuscript for my new book, and it's been eating away at my creative juices." She picked up the piles of work, hauling them to the desk in the corner.

Ichigo recalled a moment a year ago when Ishida mentioned Inoue's career, something about historical Edo period novels. Back then he couldn't reconcile the girl she was with that sort of work, but now he could. She really matured in a few short years.

She returned to the breakfast table with a tetsubin teapot, and two ceramic cups. Pouring out some sencha she spoke about her novels.

"I write more about the politics, than the romance, unlike other female novelists, it requires much research, but it's getting me attention from abroad, and my novels are already being translated into a variety of languages."

Remembering something else Ichida told him, he brought it up. " Ichida mentioned something about your first novel, how it got you a lot of good press."

She sipped her tea, smiling, "Yes, _Empty Demon. _She was my baby, and for all the hard work I put into writing her, she won me the Naoki Sanjugo Prize."

Ichigo was impressed, Inoue was always among the top students in their classes, but that prize usually went to slightly older writers with postsecondary degrees in literature.

She smiled at his raised eyebrows, "You could say I drew my inspiration from a residency in hell," She picked up her tea sipping it. Changing the subject she continued, "How about you? How's Todai treating you?"

That cued Ichigo to go onto a tangent about how much he hated his strict professors, but loved learning so much.

Inoue smiled indulgently at him. "That's wonderful, I've been thinking of moving to Tokyo, now that I can afford it, but Sinead keeps telling me that cities are horrible places to live. I'd also desperately miss Karakura.

Ichigo was puzzled by the foreign name "Who's Sinead?"

She pointed him to a picture on a shelf of a foreign woman with the blacked hair, palest skin, and the most haunted green eyes Ichigo had ever seen, and he suddenly remembered a battle in Hueco Mundo he was sure to never forget.

"She's the English translator of my work." Inoue smiled like the sun, her eyes lighting up like they did whenever she used to look at him in their youth. "She's been trying to get me to move to Ireland, but I love the climate in Japan, and she visits enough."

_Does Inoue know that she's in love with a woman that looks exactly like the monster that stole her away and tortured her?_

Some of his confusion must have showed on his face because Inoue stared at him with eyes wiser than her years, "I know, Ichigo, I know who she looks like, but that isn't the only reason." She sighed. "I communicated with her through telephone calls and emails for months before I met her in person. Her looks just made me feel more."

Ichigo was shocked. "But, wouldn't that make you... Didn't he hurt you...?"

She studied him as an exasperated parent does a child "You wouldn't understand, Ichigo." She patted him on the shoulder as she took the empty tea set to the kitchen. "Not everything's black and white."

When Ichigo left Inoue's house, after her agreeing to go see Chad's band, all he could recall was Ichida's words after a particularly vicious argument in his freshman year. When he decided not to return to visit Karakura for the summer, Ichida exploded at him. The words had no effect on him then, but now he was starting to wonder when the Quincy became so damn smart.

"The world doesn't revolve around you, Ichigo. People won't wait for you. If you don't move along with it you'll be left sagging behind in the dust."

Ichigo walked along the Karasu river to the Karakura shopping district, where he found a bookstore and purchased a novel with a cover image of a crescent moon sweeping cold, white light through a high barred window, into a pitch dark room.

He opened the book and began reading it on the walk back to the clinic. He wanted to understand.

* * *

The first time Ichigo went out on a date, he had to pay way for three people.

"What do you expect carrot top, it's not as if we have any money." Rukia raised her eyebrow, sucking her Slurpee down with bravado.

This thing, whatever he was getting into, was going to be fucking expensive.

"Hey, gimme that." Renji reached out for Rukia's treat, but she danced out of his arms reach.

"Fool, if you wanted one, you should have just asked Ichigo." She took a loud obnoxious slurp. "Go get your own."

"Nope, too late, Renji, my pockets are officially closed for the evening." He stated, purposely tucking his wallet back into his pants. "The movie tickets alone drained me of half a month's wages helping in the clinic."

"Don't complain Ichigo." She gave him a heavy look through her dark lashes. "We'll find some way to repay you."

He turned a bright shade of crimson, as Rukia laughed her mirth, striding confidently though the cinema.

Ichigo turned to face Renji, and what he saw in his eyes shot a bolt of electricity through his whole body. They were black and voracious as they stared at Rukia's retreating form. Ichigo heart sped up dangerously when he found those eyes turn to gaze at him, but before he could act, Renji winked and broke away, running after Rukia.

_I'm about to spend two hours in a dark theatre with those two sitting beside me._ He didn't know if he was terrified or excited.

In truth, he was terribly uncomfortable. Renji spent the whole entire time staring at Ichigo with his arm resting on the back of his head, fingers twiddling with his hair, instead of watching the screen. Slightly understandable considering that it was a shitty rom-com picked by Rukia.

Rukia on the other hand, was busy with her hands. While her eyes were watching the film, her hands went _everywhere. _

Ichigo's whole body was straight and stiff as a tree. He completely ignored Renji and his piercing eyes that just screamed 'make out with me!' And he folded his legs as to tuck his more _sensitive_ bits away from Rukia's administrations.

It was a complete relief when 15 minutes into the film his hollow badge went off when the main characters were cuddling, in a quiet, supposedly touching scene. He shot out of his seat and took off without even a 'by your leave.'

The two shinigami went right after him, straight into the men's bathroom, where popping out of their bodies, Ichigo instructed the two gigai to take his body back to the theatre and pretend that he'd fallen asleep.

Time to slay a hollow, or two, or five. It was a very busy night.

By the time they made it back to the theatre the film was almost over, and his body was laid out, flat on the two gigai's laps, being petted and prodded by them.

When Ichigo finally jumped back into his body he could feel the pressure of a seat arm jammed into the small of his back for days afterwards.

**The Naoki Sanjugo Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in Japan, its prizes include a fancy new watch and a million yen. **


End file.
